all the clay of you
by compartmental
Summary: Before they were gods, they were just children. / for Sara & Caesar's Palace's BTS Exchange!


_i love you_

_i will always love you_

_even with your hands around my throat, or_

_especially then_

* * *

He's eleven when he first meets her, the last in line to spar with him. The heavy wooden practice sword has made his arm sore over the last three or so hours, and the handle is slippery in his hand from his sweat. He hands the sword off to a trainer and wipes his hands dry on a nearby cloth, the trainer doing the same to the sword handle.

The boy he's fighting, just barely too young to be in Cato's own age group, drops his sword and kneels before Cato. The head trainer rings the bell and his opponent, if one could call him that, stands up and walks to the viewing area, clutching his left shoulder. A trainer calls out the next name, _Clove Kentwell_, and she steps up to face him, taking the sword from her trainer.

The first thing he notices about her is her eyes. While most of the other students in the ten-year-old group had been cautious, slightly afraid of facing him — and that's not just him being egotistical, he's only eleven and he's already the best swordsman at the Academy — when he looks at her face, all he sees are the eyes of a challenger.

* * *

Cato Hadley does not fear anything, on principle, but he fears Clove. Somehow, when he wasn't looking — and he's _always _looking, always — she crawled underneath his armor and rooted herself there, somewhere between his ribs, and try as he might, he can't get her out.

She's dangerous for him, is what she is. She can knock a sword out of his hand and hit a target with her knife from so far away that, standing beside her, he can't even see where she's aiming. Even knowing all this, all the ways she could kill him, he can't even think of killing her. He knows she'll be a bloodthirsty, frightening tribute, but he can't imagine her as anything other than his training partner, as his best friend.

* * *

When he's a few months away from fifteen and she's a month and a half away from fourteen, she asks, "Do you love me?"

They're in the training center after everyone else has gone home, like they always are. Cato is polishing the sword he was training with, and he drops it. "_What_?"

"Do you love me?" she repeats, simply. "It's not that hard of a question."

He sits down opposite her, spreads his legs out. He rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands. "Why are you asking me?"

Clove is silent for a moment. "Because everyone else your age is telling a girl he loves them, and you don't have a girl, you have me. Do you love me?"

Cato looks up at her, looks in her eyes and sees vulnerability, not the same eyes of a challenger. He did that, took a fighter and turned her into someone with a weakness (and her weakness is him and he's the worst person and she's his weakness, too) and he swallows, hard.

"No."

She doesn't cry, like he knows some other girls in the district would; she just nods and says, "Okay," but he can see the shields, the metal building up behind her eyes again.

He hopes he chokes on his lies.

* * *

There's a system in District 2: each year, the Academy chooses one boy or one girl as their Victor, the one they've given the best chance to win it all. If that student isn't chosen, then they volunteer. No one else is allowed to volunteer for those Games.

When Cato turns sixteen, six months before the Reapings for the 74thAnnual Hunger Games, the headmaster of the Academy makes a special visit to the training center. All of the trainers blow their whistles, halting all activity; the students set their weapons down and turn to face him, arms ramrod straight against their sides.

The headmaster blushes, like it's an honor, like he wouldn't have punished them severely if they hadn't followed this exact procedure. He clears his throat and approaches Cato at the sword station. "Sir," Cato greets, not blinking.

"Mr. Hadley," the headmaster says, eyes going to the sword at Cato's feet. "How is your training treating you today?"

"My training is going quite well, sir," Cato replies. He can see Clove through his peripheral vision; she looks like she isn't breathing, either.

"As you know," the headmaster continues, as if Cato hadn't spoken, "The committee and I have been reviewing all of our students here at the Academy."

"Yes, sir."

"Your class is filled with excellent students, some of the finest I've seen in my time here at the Academy," the headmaster says.

"I'm proud to train with them," is all Cato says.

"Nevertheless, we have chosen you as our Victor. Congratulations, Mr, Hadley. It is a title well-earned."

"Thank you, sir," Cato replies, shaking. With that, the headmaster turns and makes his exit.

Cato breathes a sigh of relief and closes his eyes. The room, which moments before was so quite a pin drop would have been louder than a thunderclap, is filled with applause and cheers, as if he's already won.

In a way, he supposes, he has.

He opens his eyes when he feels Clove's arms squeeze around him — he knows it's her, would know it was her even if he didn't know who _he_was — and she looks so proud of him, like she's looked at him every day since she met him.

Cato is happy.

* * *

Since he is the chosen Victor, he is instructed to not train with the other students. As the Reaping quickly approaches, he is assigned to private lessons with his future mentors. For the first time in his life, Cato is intimidated. He's easily the best of the current students, he knows, but the Victors before him — actual Victors who entered the Game as tributes and witnessed war and emerged bloody and scarred and victorious — are on the other side of this. They sat where he did, years before, and they're about to tell him exactly what to do to win.

Brutus is — he just reeks intimidation and the command for subordination, but it's Enobaria who scares him. She looks almost innocent, almost normal, but he's seen the footage of her in hand-to-hand combat, of her ripping her enemies' throats out with the same teeth she's smiling at him with. He tastes blood in his mouth.

He thinks Clove would love it.

* * *

The problem is, they were never supposed to be in the Games together. Cato was going to win the 74th Hunger Games, come back and take residence in the Victor's Village. Clove was all set to be the chosen Victor for the 75th Games. They'd both go, they'd both come back, and life would resume as it had been.

That is, until their escort calls out, "Clove Kentwell," as the female tribute of the 74th Annual Hunger Games, and could she please make her way up to the stage?

Cato chokes on nothing and spins around, catches her eye. She doesn't look terrified — she looks _ready_, which, of course she is — but she looks vulnerable again, because she knows. As she walks, he can't take her eyes off her. She doesn't look back.

He doesn't hear the name that's called for the male tribute, because he's staring at where his parents and the headmaster are standing. The headmaster's gaze is stony and he just nods.

As the boy starts his way down the aisle to the stage, Cato walks swiftly to pass him. "I volunteer," he says once he's standing on the stage, at Clove's side. "I volunteer as tribute."

They're standing there on the stage, her in her brand new dress and him in his once-worn suit; the inseparable dream team, off to face the biggest opponent of their lives, and only one of them is coming back.

* * *

The train ride is silent, at Cato's request. Brutus and Enobaria had wanted to go over strategies for the pair, but Cato had told them that tomorrow could be a day for strategy, but now is the time for anything but.

He's sitting on the couch with Clove, who is rewinding and replaying the footage from Enobaria's Games repeatedly. He grabs the remote from her and clicks the television off. She turns to face him.

"What are we going to do?" he asks.

"What do you mean? We're going to go into the Hunger Games; one of us is going to die and one of us is going to go home." There's no vulnerability in her eyes now.

Cato doesn't say anything for a while. "I don't want you to die," he finally says.

"Then I guess you'll have to," Clove replies, voice empty.

"Clove —"

"Look, Cato, training partners probably have to face each other in the Hunger Games all the time. It happens."

He decides against it, but then he thinks, _one of us is going to die, so why does it matter?_

"I was lying when I told you I didn't love you," he says. "I don't want to lie anymore."

She doesn't look at him. "It's a little late for that."

* * *

**author's notes**: Okay, so, this happened? This is my first time writing Clato, so... For the lovely Sara (MockingjayWithFangs) for the Back to School Exchange on Caesar's Palace. Love you, Sara! Please review. (:

Also, I own almost nothing except the actual wording. Title from "Spoon River Anthology" by Edgar Lee Masters. Editing and summary courtesy of Zoey!


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